Recently I have spent a lot of time just exploring the idea of blogging. What it is, why we do it and how it is useful. I have subscribed to a number of blogs for personal and professional reasons. I am finding that RSS really helps me keep up with the many blogs and websites that I like without having to remember where I found them.
So, I was thinking about the what and why today. I have blogs all over as I explore the many different websites that allow the keeping of blogs. This is one of many right now. I do hope to settle on one eventually. So what is a blog? It is simply a written log of thoughts, dreams, ideas, knowledge, in fact whatever you want it to be. I find people blog for a huge number of reasons, and that leads us to the why? Many people use it as a diary of sorts, a way to tell the world about what is going on in their minds and lives. Hence, the name Blog or Weblog. It is a log, a chronological listing of entries much like a diary,. A lot of people use blogs to keep family and friends posted on life events when they live far apart. An even larger number of people share their opinions. All of the news sites have columnists who blog about news, political blogs are rampant, every profession has bloggers who comment on the latest trends and how good or bad they are. Another use, my own favorite is sharing knowledge. So many people out there have knowledge and they generally shared it with a small number of people in their area. Some people had a broader reach but not that many. Blogging allows any of us to share things we know with the world. Maybe the world is not interested but those who are can certainly read up on whatever they want to know. I have subscribed to any number of teachers blogs who share websites, ideas and trends with the rest of us. It is such a good way to keep up with what others are learning and doing!
So what else, well there is still more. I can use a blog as a teacher, posting ideas, articles, book reviews, any number of things and allow students to comment and participate. I could set up blogs for my students so they can do the same. I can use a blog to keep in touch with parents, posting homework, special assignments, classroom news, events coming up, anything that I think parents might need to know. A blog would be a very simple way to do that sort of thing.
How is easy, finding blogging sites is like looking for flowers in a botanical garden! They are all over. The problem is figuring out what to use. There are tons of blog sites and many different types of sites host them. There is of course, this site – Edublogs.com. It is a site intended for teachers with a free version and a pay version. It is a nicely put together site with lots of design options to make up your blog.
Here are a couple of others to explore -
You can also join one of the Social Networks like Ning or Classroom 2.0, these are great places to meet teachers who are trying to do the same kinds of things and you can set up your own page with a blog. However, this would be a professional blog and not necessarily one for students. At Ning you can set up your own Social Network for your students, they can each have a page with blogs. This is a newer and very interesting idea, visit Ning if you are interested!
